These days, so many people have great ideas for startups that having a fantastic idea isn’t enough anymore. Startups often try to take the same path to success that forebears have followed. Instead of trying to emulate someone else’s success, focus on how to think differently. Set yourself apart by crafting a business model that isn’t like the other startups on the block. You’ll have the advantage with customers, and you’ll offer something new and exciting when it comes time to find funding from venture capitalists, angel investors, or other sources of investments.
How do you know what other startups are thinking? You don’t. But you can observe their behaviors and discover a lot about what they aren’t doing. Many startups are focused on finding funding and developing products. If you’re willing to go a bit slower, making those valuable customer connections is a great way to think differently from your competition. Similarly, spend time building your brand and developing your image. The cliché is true: You never get a second chance at a first impression, so know what your brand stands for and what it delivers right off the bat.
Put everyone in contact with customers
Want to do something completely different from other startups? Don’t just have one or two customer contact people. Put everyone in contact with the customers. The CEO, the legal team, and the designers all should talk to customers once in a while. Why? First, imagine tweeting at a startup and getting a reply from the CEO. You would feel like your query actually mattered to the company, and like you were a very valued customer indeed. Other customers will see the CEO interacting with people and will take notice of your company.
Second, everyone who works with your company should learn about your customers. Businesses that succeed have a very customer-focused approach to doing things. You’re moving beyond thinking the customer is always right, and going to a place that makes it truly easy to be a customer with your business. You’re not just offering a product. You’re showing current and prospective customers that doing business with your team is easy, from ordering products and services to getting questions answered to making returns.
Focus on response time
You’re a small business, so customers don’t have to go through a lot of major channels just to talk to someone who can solve their problem. Make customer service a major part of your startup’s culture. If you begin your journey focusing on responding quickly to customers, you’ll develop an early reputation as a customer-focused brand. Think of it this way: Customers are taking a risk on a new company with a new product. The least you can do is get back to them fast when they have questions or problems.
Interact like humans
The initial contact with a customer might be through a website form or an automated email. That’s fine, as long as you only use it to let the customers know that a real human will be with them shortly. People aren’t impressed with companies that have robots answering the phone or trying to sort out their queries through chat. It’s also equally frustrating having to go through a bunch of screens before even being allowed to submit a problem.
Ultimately, interacting like humans means making it easy for customers to reach you, and giving them a real person to talk to once they do reach you. Your customers will love you for it, and even if your product is a little more expensive or your shipping takes a while, they’ll keep coming back because they feel like they matter as a person.
Research your audience
Every startup has done market research to discover if their product has a place with their target audience. To think differently, go far beyond that research and really learn your audience. Demographics are only where you begin. The real way to know your audience is to figure out what makes them tick. Where are their pain points? What do they wish they knew? What are their lives missing? And, how can you answer those questions?
Creating customer profiles is a good starting place. Spend time interacting with your audience on social media. Ask them questions. Pay attention to what they say and how they interact with both you and others. When you truly know your audience, you’ll know exactly why they want and need your product. You’ll also know where to target your marketing to draw in like-minded people.
Ask them
You know a great way to find out what your audience wants? Ask. Companies spend so much money every year conducting market research based on what websites customers visit, what they query in search engines, and which products they spend the most time looking at. Whether you’re coming up with topics for your content marketing or trying to perfect a new product, reach out to your customers. Ask them what they want.
To incentivize participation, try offering giveaways or small coupons in exchange for taking polls. Make the polls general, and encourage your customers to share them on social media. That way, you get some automatic lead building while you’re mining for customer data.
Look at challenges with optimism
Nobody likes set-backs, failing, or making mistakes. But it’s going to happen to you, just like it happens to everyone else. Instead of getting frustrated when these circumstances happen, look at them with optimism. Every bad opportunity provides you with new information. You get to learn from your mistakes if you focus on what could have made things go better.
So, instead of feeling frustration about a roadblock, be optimistic. Roadblocks are going to happen no matter what, so how you react to them is what sets you apart from other startups. This is your crash course in managing a startup, so are you going to get frustrated or are you going to take what you’ve learned and immediately apply it to your next great idea?
Be careful with your funds
A lot of startups pour their money into developing products or ideas and trying to lure in venture capital funding or angel investors. Your startup may need those things, too, but that’s no reason to save money in the mean time. Where can you cut costs? The solutions are often very simple, from office space to electricity usage to paper waste. When you start cutting unnecessary costs from your overhead, you free up funds for things that are important.
Imagine, for instance, the pressure you take off your own shoulders when you stop doing the books for your company. Extra funds may mean you have the cash to hire an accountant part-time, or at least buy some quality bookkeeping software that does a lot of the work for you. When you spend your funds in ways that help manage the business, you free up your own time to keep innovating and expanding.
Develop your brand early
A cool concept often takes precedent over brand development. After all, how many startups do you hear about offering a cool product? Probably a fair few. Can you offer three words about those startups and their brand personalities? That’s a little more difficult. Established brands have obvious personalities, but new brands often struggle with finding a voice and a niche.
Don’t go that route. Start with your mission statement, and take a look at your audience. Those two things will inform your branding and your company personality. After all, some of the most memorable brands catch our attention because they offer unforgettable personalities in their ads and their interactions. Your branding needs to be part of everything your company does, even internally. Make it pervasive early on so you turn more heads and catch more customers.
You can never think completely differently from every startup, because all new companies are different. You can set yourself apart from the pack by focusing on different things, like customer service and brand identity. Keep innovating, and keep focusing on where you’ll find the capital you need. But never forget that you went into business to provide people a product or service. As long as you remember that a human connection is necessary for what you’re doing, you’ll keep thinking differently.
